A Passing Engagement
by wokeuptonight
Summary: Lucius Malfoy and Andromeda Black are engaged. We know they won't end up together. But there was a time when even they thought they would. [AU]


_A/N: This is what my LuciusAndromeda plot bunny has given birth to. Reviews are loved and constructive criticism is appreciated. I own nothing except the ideas in my head._

* * *

**A Passing Engagement**

* * *

**An Unlikely Match**

Mr. Malfoy and Mr. Black leave Andromeda and Lucius to entertain themselves by one of the large windows in the ballroom. Her eyes follow the two men as they slip between the crowd on the dance floor and the tables along the circumference of the room towards their wives, with whom they immediately begin some kind of conference.

Andromeda smirks. "No prizes for guessing what they're talking about."

Lucius laughs. "The prize is for the one who'll guess how soon our engagement will be announced."

"Well," she says thoughtfully, swirling her wine in her glass, "I suppose they will wait a few months to see how well we get on. I bet they're congratulating themselves on our having this conversation. They will have a party maybe a month before the term ends—the last big event for every pureblood in my year before we leave school for the summer. We will dance all the dances together. When people will ask if we're engaged, only then will our parents say it. The word will spread, and for the weeks leading up to the last day of term, that's all people will talk about. Thus our parents will achieve their double goal of spreading the word about our engagement without posting those ridiculous wedding announcements in every single newspaper _and_ making other parents worry about their own bloodlines."

"You seem to have given this a fair bit of thought, Andromeda," Lucius remarks.

"Please, call me Andy," she says. "It's not as if we're complete strangers." She drains her glass. "And if we're going to spend forever together, I'd rather you spend as little time saying my name as possible."

"What do you propose I do with the time I'd save, then?" he asks slyly, letting his eyes linger on the elegant curve of her neck and the aristocratic features that she and her sisters all possess. Andromeda Black wasn't ugly, wasn't ugly at all.

"Making a living," she says, just as slyly.

"Scandalous," he jokes.

"And completely necessary," she adds.

A waiter passes by holding a tray of full champagne glasses. Lucius and Andromeda replace their empty ones.

"So I will be spending my time running my family business," Lucius says in mock thoughtfulness, "while you travel around the world, fighting thieves, breaking into crypts, and possibly shagging all those exotic men you meet. Unfair, wouldn't you say?"

"Funny, I never thought you'd imply that your charms aren't enough to hold my attention," Andromeda replies. "Unless I were mistaken, you thought yourself quite highly back in Hogwarts, at least when it came to seducing girls and playing Quidditch."

"You think I'm charming?" Lucius is surprised. Andromeda only seemed to speak to him in school and society when she really needed to. _Maybe it's the champagne_, he thinks, a little disappointed and confused at his disappointment.

"Don't flatter yourself, _Malfoy_, I find a lot of people charming."

"But you think I'm charming enough to prevent you from cheating on me," he points out.

"Oh, only when compared to the thieves Curse Breakers must deal with on a daily basis," Andromeda retorts cheerfully. "Honestly, 'exotic men'—that's more Bella's type than mine."

Lucius and Andromeda take a moment to observe Andromeda's darkly beautiful sister, Bellatrix, slow dancing with her darkly handsome husband, Rodolphus.

"So, what kind of men _do _you like?" Lucius asks, genuinely curious.

"Does it matter?" Andromeda faces the window.

"Well," he says, picking his words carefully, "if you aren't going to have affairs with those brooding Egyptian Curse Breakers—as you have implied—then I'd want to make it up to you by being a satisfactory husband at least."

"That's nice of you." She's still facing the window.

"Hey, I don't get by on charm alone." A pause here, calculated to make Andromeda find his next statement all the funnier. Lucius has always liked making girls laugh. "Money pulls a lot of strings too."

She giggles softly and places her half-full glass on a nearby table. "You're surprising," she finally says. "I think I like that."

Lucius Malfoy has been called many things, but never "surprising." "You like it?"

"If we're going to spend the rest of our lives together, Lucius," she says, turning towards him and locking her blue eyes on his grey ones, "I'd rather not be bored."

* * *

"He's a fine young man, that Lucius, isn't he?" Druella Black says to her husband as he climbs into their bed later that night. "I think you've made a good choice for Andromeda's husband."

"They do seem to get along," Cygnus admits. He sighs in the darkness and lies flat on his back.

"When you first told me she wants to be a Curse Breaker, I was terribly worried," Druella continues. "That's an awfully dangerous job for any young woman, let alone a pureblooded one. Leave the Muggleborns and half-bloods to those things, I always say, as their lives are more expendable. But I suppose the Black name made the boy conveniently overlook Andromeda's…eccentricity."

"I daresay he finds her interesting," Cygnus mumbles. He remembers with satisfaction the way the two young people chatted for most of the evening, and the waltz they danced together without being told to. This is turning out to be easier than arranging Bellatrix's wedding, and she was already dating that Lestrange boy to begin with.

"Well, I hope she keeps him interested," Druella replies, feeling a sharp pang of hurt inside her at the memory of Cygnus's affair with some Brazilian witch while Narcissa was still being nursed. Druella sneaks a look at her husband, who has visibly stiffened.

"He would have his hands full," Cygnus says after a long silence, "trying to stamp out all those silly ideas she has about how Muggleborns and half-bloods are our equals."

"That might turn him against her," Druella points out, panicking now. She would _not_ have her daughters go through the same thing she went through—the feeling that the world was laughing at you, the cold empty space in the bed…

"Maybe," Cygnus agrees. "But that Lucius seems to like a challenge."

* * *

After throwing a hairy jumper at yet another inefficient house elf, Abraxas Malfoy stomps angrily towards the bedroom he alone (more or less) has occupied since the death of his wife some sixteen years earlier. She was always more adept at handling these domestic problems.

He decides to pay her a little visit before bed and ducks into his study, where a life-sized moving photograph of Alexandra Malfoy hangs in an enormous silver frame.

"Hello there," she says, smiling at him. He feels old looking at the smooth skin of her face.

"Good evening," he says in return.

"Anything new to tell me?" she asks.

"Well—"

"Hang on." Alexandra moves out of the frame and comes back dragging an armchair. She sits down, tucks her feet beneath her, and settles into the plush velvet, a habit that she has had since her first days in the Slytherin Common Room. "All right. Now I'm settled."

"I think I have found our Lucius a wife," Abraxas announces proudly.

"A wife!" Alexandra laughs. "Already? Who is she?"

"Andromeda Black," he answers. "Cygnus and Druella's second daughter."

"Andromeda Black," Alexandra repeats, sighing. "She was my goddaughter, wasn't she?"

"Yes, and now she wants to be a Curse Breaker."

Alexandra raises an eyebrow. "Not the sort of girl I can imagine you pairing our son with, Abraxas."

"If I recall correctly," Abraxas says with the merest hint of affection, "_you_ wanted to be a Curse Breaker yourself."

"I was thirteen at that time, and horribly misinformed by those noisy Gryffindors who wanted nothing more than to die in a country where nobody knew them." She laughs heartily. Abraxas winces and unconsciously rubs the part of his neck where one of those noisy Gryffindors had hit him with a Beater's bat during Quidditch.

"That was a long time ago," he agrees. "With time, I'm sure Miss Black would grow out of this fantasy as well."

"I suppose." Alexandra stares at him quizzically. She opens her mouth as if to say more, but sees that he is stifling a yawn. After a while, she tells him, "Abraxas, you look tired. Go to bed. We can talk more in the morning. You need your rest, as you're getting on in years."

"Oh, don't rub it in," he says. But as much as Abraxas would like to stay and talk his drooping eyelids and heavy arms tell him to do otherwise. He reaches up to Alexandra's portrait. She sits perfectly still as his fingertips graze her cheek, flat in the film of the photograph.

"Good night, Abraxas," she says, a little sadly. He thinks that he could feel her breath against his fingers.

"Good night."

Abraxas turns off the lights one by one until he could no longer see his wife's pale skin, dark hair, and inquisitive blue eyes. _If Lucius is anything like me_, he figures, noticing the resemblance between Alexandra and Miss Black for the nth time that night, _then I've chosen the right girl._


End file.
